A renowned open-borders sociology professor with published research on “victims of deportation policies” is behind the Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) new regulation ordering the release of illegal immigrant families in U.S. custody.

This week DHS Secretary Jeh Johnson announced the outrageous new policy that will let illegal immigrant families go free in the U.S. All they have to do is claim a “credible or reasonable fear of persecution in their home countries,” Johnson said. The country’s top homeland security official explained that he decided to create this new measure after conducting numerous visits to family residential centers, including one in Karnes, Texas, where he spoke to the Central American mothers who “came to this country seeking a better life for their children and themselves.”

Based on the detention center visits and chats with illegal immigrants Johnson concluded that the government had to make “substantial changes” in detention practices with respect to families with children. “In short, once a family has established eligibility for asylum or other relief under our laws, long-term detention is an inefficient use of our resources and should be discontinued,” Johnson said. DHS is also ensuring access to lawyers, paid for by American taxpayers, for the detained illegal aliens as well as social workers, educational services and comprehensive medical care.

Of interesting note is that Johnson failed to mention the driving force behind his agency’s new policy. His name is Luis Zayas and he is the dean of Social Work at the University of Texas, Austin. In late May a group of pro-illegal alien members of congress, led by amnesty champion Luis Gutierrez of Illinois, wrote Johnson a letter demanding an end to the use of family detention for illegal immigrants. “It is undeniable that detention in a secure facility is detrimental to mothers and children and is not reflective of our values as a nation,” the letter states. “Children require special protections and should not be placed in jail-like settings.”

To back the claim, the lawmakers cite an affidavit written by Zayas, who asserts that children of undocumented or illegal immigrants are often the unintended victims of deportation policies. The professor has examined the effects of deportation on the psychosocial functioning of U.S.-born children of illegal alien Mexicans, according to his university biography, and often testifies in immigration courts on behalf of children and their families. “Presently, Zayas is focusing on the plight of citizen-children whose parents are being deported,” the public university biography states.

This background information is important because Zayas is the expert cited in the persuading letter Congress fired off to Johnson. Zayas determined that the detained illegal immigrant children are “facing some of the most adverse childhood conditions of any children I have ever interviewed or evaluated.” The professor further concluded that “detention has had serious and long-lasting impacts on the psychological health and well-being” of families at one center and that these impacts were evident in families who were detained for as little as two weeks. Days later the agency created after 9/11 to protect the nation from another terrorist attack, actually caved into this absurd assessment.